Evaluating Potential and Feasibility of Wind Energy Considering Restriction of Plant Location

Abstract

Renewable energy has been developed in Japan to actualize the sustainable society. It is also expected to contribute rehabilitation razed by Great East Japan Earthquake. Iwate prefecture has great wind resources potential among disaster-stricken areas. We have evaluated the wind energy by wind turbines in Iwate prefecture with Geographic Information System (GIS) taking into account restriction for the plant location and business feasibility. Furthermore, we have analyzed sensitivity analysis of feasibility and assessed the case of bigger or less expensive wind turbines. As the results, wind power in Iwate prefecture has capable of generating 73.4 TWh for one year with the levelized cost of 24.7 Yen/kWh. For the location which has above 8% of the internal rate of return (IRR), the total amount of annual electricity and the levelized cost are estimated to 3.0 TWh and 15.4 Yen/kWh, respectively. The available area is 232 km² and this accounts for only 1.5% of the whole. The improvement of IRR is expected by the installation of larger wind turbines, though the available area increases only slightly with the cost reduction case.